Tribute to an Icon

This month (July 16th to be exact) marks the 10 year anniversary of Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr.'s death. I've seen a few photo montage/tributes here and there, but not quite as much as I had expected. I guess every one's still obsessing over MJ. Granted, I was 12 when America's sweethearts perished, but I always remember Carolyn's epic fashion sense, and the intense media scrutiny on her. She was everything my 12-year-old self wanted to be; fashionable, successful, smart, a New Yorker, and married to the hottest man alive (ok, well for 1999...aside from Brad Pitt, haha.) She embodied everything "Classy and Fabulous." My respect for her has only grown since her death, and now see it fit that CBK gets a proper tribute to her life and style.

JFK and Carolyn seemed to have the perfect marriage. Regardless of what the media suspected/accused, they had an ideal modern union. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

A few slanderous books have come out since, but I don't believe they were unhappy...or that she was a total bitch/cokehead.

Liz Tilberis, the editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar once said; ''She's going to be an amazing symbol of American style.''

Their pup Friday.

John pleaded with the paparazzi to leave Carolyn alone. He understood that the "mystique" thing was nonsense—that Bessette was not an icon, but a wife, a worker, a daughter, and a friend, with an insatiable appetite for life.

They lived in a Tribeca Loft.

Apparently, she first met and spoke with Kennedy when both were running in Central Park.

She certainly knew her shoes.

The fact that she was not a public person and made herself public for John says a lot about how she felt about him.

Declared a trendsetter by the national press, she was often compared to her late mother-in-law, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, because of her fierce protection of her own (and Kennedy's) privacy.

My two favorite looks of hers.

John was iconic, beloved. No one wanted to hear bad things about him," says one of John's former business associates. "So what happens? The burden fell to Carolyn. And she played into that. Carolyn wasn't always that friendly."

Such a natural beauty.

"They had arguments," he says. But they also "couldn't take their hands off each other." If there was one source of steady friction between the pair, it was, by all accounts, their differing views about starting a family. "They both wanted kids very much," says Barlow. "But Carolyn was spooked about having kids until they'd figured out how to handle the press. She had been through such a media nightmare, and she didn't want to expose a child to that."

She showed a face of laughter, a wealth of tenderness, and a profound commitment to her husband, friends, and family during her brief but spirited life. RIP